Interested in a student job, $700 per week, with flexible work hours? If this email looks familiar, it’s more than likely an attempt at fraud.

Students have been contacted by a group claiming to be giving out jobs that pay students for their opinions. The emails are sent from Chelsea Baker, Brenda Walker and other aliases. They describe the need for the jobs and say, “Believe it or not, your opinion is worth a paycheck.” The emails vary in the amount of money offered, but have one thing in common: fraud.

Loyola University Police Department sent out a campus-wide email advising students to be aware of a business’ legitimacy, especially those online, and asked students to recognize that companies do not hand out money. Roger Pinac, LUPD captain, said to use common sense and look carefully into anything that asks for personal information or money.

Pinac also said the key to identifying the legitimacy of an email is to “verify, verify, verify and to make sure that you always know who you are talking to.”

Bret Jacobs, vice provost of Information Technology agrees on that note to verify.

“Legitimate sites will never ask you to verify personal information such as your account password,” he said.

Jacobs also said that recognizing the email sender is always important in identifying scammers.

According to Pinac, the only thing new about this type of scam is the use of technology. Criminals prey on students because they may send money without thinking about the consequences, he said. He also said students’ university emails and contact information may always be abused because they are available to anyone with Internet access.

LUPD has received three official attempted theft by fraud reports this semester and numerous unofficial reports, Pinac said.

Sydney Brouillette, English writing freshman, said she received several emails about high-paying student opinion jobs. She did not know they were fraudulent emails, but never responded.

“My initial reaction to the emails was indifference, but this was because I had a lot on my plate and was not looking for a job,” she said.

She said if she was looking for a job, she would have replied to these emails.

Lucy Dieckhaus can be reached at [email protected]